By 1994 tin mining in Southwest Asia was in deep decline with the worldwide market flooded by excessive exports from China and tin prices at historic lows.
The Malayan Mining Employers' Association was considering disbanding with tin prices at $14.25/kilo while a price of $16.00/kilo was required to cover costs.
Tin production in Malaysia that reached 60-70,000 tons in 1960 was down to 10,384 tons in 1993 and the number of workers in the industry had sunk from 40,000 in 1980 to 2300 in 1994.
Tin mining had been going on in Malaysia for centuries.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese originally came to the country to work in the tin mines and in the 1890's Cornish tin miners developed the Sungei Lembing mine on Malaysia's east coast.
By 1900 Malaysia (then Malaya) was producing 50,000 tons of tin each year, more than half the world's output.
In the early 1980's the increasing use of aluminum in beverage cans took a hunk out of the tin market and then in 1985 a price support scheme of the International Tin Council collapsed leaving a huge stock of more than 40,000 tons of tin on the world market.
Three countries with low labor costs, Brazil, China, and Indonesia, added to the glut producing the crises of the early 1990's.
Tin producing countries agreed to export quotas, but China did not honor its promises, so prospects were grim by 1994.
